The Trident and the Pillars of Poseidon

By Frederick C. Dorando Ph.D. and Joe Reyes

As far as the book itself goes, I loved it. I thought it was very well written in terms of the story and the development of it. The topic of the Great Pyramid of Giza has intrigued the world's greatest minds for decades and decades, and as much as the answer has already been given, there is still much mystery about it. Well, this book gives us a precise answer through a very well-thought-out adventure. I loved the mix of Professor Walker, Toby, Scotch, and Ms. Cooper. I thought the book was divided equally between the characters with more attention being given to Professor Walker as the guy behind the scenes, who plotted the original idea that started the entire adventure.

Other characters throughout the book had just enough room to complete their contributions to the story. Ms. Cooper came to help just in time with her friend from Cuba and assisted them with the other half of the adventure. I found everything explained just enough to understand but constantly craved for more!

As far as the plausibility of the events goes, I go by a very simple logic. Nothing is impossible, even if it only means nobody has done it yet. The events within the pyramid and in Cuba might make the experts say, "No way this is going to work like that." However, there is so much to explore on this topic, and as much as the world's greatest explorers have already found, there are so many more questions still unanswered. Reading this book gives you an answer to maybe one of the greatest mysteries that has plagued the explorers and archaeologists.

We all know not even 10 percent of world's oceans have been explored. It is such a vast space, and to this day, we still know very little about what they contain. The Bay of Batabano has been considered to be the place that nobody has taken a serious approach to researching as yet. It could very well be the location of the great lost city. Only time will tell.

--Critique by Mervin Cikic, Bijelo Pole, Montenegro

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887638423

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

List of Illustrations

Preface

About the Book

Introduction

Prologue

The Museum and the New Year Celebration

Entering and Exiting of the Great Pyramid

Arriving in England

The British Museum

The Agent

The Navigator

Starlight to the Airfield

Trident's New Passengers

Off the Coast of Cuba

Under the Mountain Streams

The Decision to Scan Beneath the Bay

Finding the Smoking Gun

The Pillar of Poseidon

Epilogue

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The Trident and the Pillars of Poseidon

Frederick C. Dorando, Ph.D. and Joe Reyes

Copyright © 2023 by Frederick C. Dorando, Ph.D

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Published by: Newman Springs Publishing 320 Broad St., Red Bank, NJ 07701

First Printed Edition 2023

ISBN: 979-8-88763-841-6 (Paperback)

ISBN: 979-8-89061-099-7 (Hardcover)

ISBN: 979-8-88763-842-3 (Digital)

Library of Congress Control Number: TXu002356827

Story By: Frederick Charles Dorando, Ph.D.

Written By: Joseph Reyes

Printed in the United States of America

List of Illustrations

Figure 1: Great Pyramid of Giza showing the recently hypothesized room—the Void

Figure 2: The British Museum containing archaeological exhibits

Figure 3: Rendering of the Giza Plateau showing the Great Pyramid on the right, and the pyramid of Khafre in the center with the Great Sphinx seated in front of the Khafre pyramid

Figure 4: Great Pyramid or Khufu pyramid—cross section

Figure 5: The mural of the night sky near the Sphinx

Figure 6: The mural of the map showing Plato's lost city on the plain of Batabano

Figure 7: The mural showing the Temple of Poseidon on the central island of Poseidia

Figure 8: The Trident research vessel in the Bay of Batabano

Figure 9: A rendering of the god Poseidon on a mural

Figure 10: The mythical lost city as described by Plato in his Critias dialogue

Figure 11: The Pillar of Poseidon in the sandy bottom in the Bay of Batabano

Figure 12: The center book of the nine books from the table in the Void room

Preface

About the Book

This introduction will provide the reader an understanding of the author's training and the evolution of this work. My formal training was as a research scientist in biochemistry with work-related specialties in data processing (analyst/data warehousing design), accompanied by lecturing at a medical school, and teaching chemistry at college and secondary school. This list of activities embodies the years 1973 to 2017. The book was created from 2017 through 2023 and turns out to be a bucket list item that had its origins in the 1961 George Pal film Atlantis, the Lost Continent. The film had a haunting effect on my development as a teenager and young adult. For some inexplicable reason, after watching the film for the first time, I felt that the story of the lost city was real and decidedly not a fable.

I pursued researches into the then poorly known archaeology of the Americas. I clearly remember that in those early days of my studies, I concluded that the tales woven by the academically well-grounded were decidedly wrong owing to the drawing of conclusions that were based on too little information. Two examples of this would be the population (size) estimates of the indigenous cultures of the Americas and the sophistication of their knowledge of science, specifically astronomy, chemistry, and engineering. However, as college approached, I adopted a more pragmatic view towards a career in science, which ultimately replaced any serious attention to archaeology.

Years later, when retirement arrived, a reenergized passion awoke. Specifically, I wanted to find out whether the lost city actually existed or if it were the invention of an overactive imagination of a Greek philosopher. Fortunately for me, scientific methodologies and field research in archaeology had advanced significantly in the half century that had elapsed. Many questionable theories and points of view related to the level of sophistication of the ancient cultures had been revised.

So utilizing an objective problem-solving approach and with much improved analytical skills and knowledge of technical tools, two issues were researched: (1) the mysterious nature of the Great Pyramid with its many anomalous features; and (2) the location of the lost city. The focus was mainly on the first issue as the second issue had been thoroughly worked on over the years.

The story of how the Great Pyramid was built has traveled down to us from antiquity. Some of the earliest stories came from historians that many of us would recognize, such as Plato and Herodotus. Their sources were either the Egyptian priests or what could be described as the local legends of the day. Throughout the centuries, the dialogues of Plato (Timaeus and Critias) have gone from the realm of accepted historical fact to one of fable and allegory.

The primary reason for the legend falling out of favor continues to be a simple lack of physical evidence. That circumstance, however, has not deterred modern-day skeptics from looking for Atlantis in every new archaeological dig virtually everywhere on the planet. The list of considered geographical locations now numbers more than a dozen.

What are the legitimate clues that scholars should be searching for? Certainly, most of the reference material comes from Plato's dialogues. His description of the island of some size with a relatively flat, mostly rectangular plain possessing streams and being bordered by mountains to the north and deep seas to the south is clearly the starting point. However, there is another clue, namely:

The whole country is only a long promontory extending far into the sea away from the rest of the continent… (The Critias)

What does that description mean? Well, Plato's description can't be both an island and a promontory at the same time, can it? No. What it can mean though is that the island was once connected to a continent as a promontory. Does such an island, possibly elongated, exist? Yes, it does. Does it have a relatively large flat, rectangular plain above water? No. However, there is a candidate island that does have such a plain which is currently submerged in a very shallow bay, covering some ten thousand square miles. What did Plato say happened to that part of the island where the lost city was located?

Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years, for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which I am speaking; and during all this time and through so many changes, there has never been any considerable accumulation of the soil coming down from the mountains, as in other places, but the earth has fallen away all round and sunk out of sight… (The Critias)

Then the question to be posed is where is there an island that could have been a promontory to a continent with an attached large underwater plain? The Bay of Batabano that lies immediately to the south of the island of Cuba is the best candidate. The entire submerged area is quite shallow, and it can be reasonably described as a submerged flat plain, and to a first approximation, it is rectangular. Of course, it has mountains to the north and a large deep-sea falloff to the south, as Plato had described.

So why hasn't anyone looked there or rather why hasn't anyone reported on having looked there? Perhaps because of the political issues surrounding Cuba, or possibly because no one has found anything interesting or anomalous aboveground on the island of Cuba.

So, this book is an archaeological fiction that offers a hypothetical explanation for some of the unsolved anomalies found in the Great Pyramid and attributes its primary purpose to serving as a time capsule for the mythical(?) civilization of Atlantis. Also, it points to a logical location to be searched in order to locate the lost city. Or was it more like a civilization?

Introduction

Figure 1: Great Pyramid of Giza showing the recently hypothesized room—the Void

The Void and its location are based upon a computer analysis of muonic data from a special research project carried out in 2016 and 2017. The general description of the Void is a chamber or room that doesn't have any known access passageways. Its dimensions are estimated as approximately one hundred feet in length by twenty-six feet in height, and its location is above the King's Chamber on the northern-facing side of the pyramid.

Our story begins with a small band of tourists coming to Egypt to attend the opening of the New Grand Egyptian Museum. The group is composed of a diverse collection of individuals, some with an archaeological background and some not.

Prologue

January 1st, 2:31 a.m.

Great Pyramid of Giza, Cairo, Egypt

One step at a time. That was the key phrase to accomplishing his task. It was their task now in fact. Their mission, not just a theoretical solo project anymore for Professor Walker. One step at a time, he kept reciting to himself in his head as he physically and literally was taking steps up these awkward wooden stairs within the portion of the pyramid here known as the ‘Grand Gallery'.

One step at a time, one step at a time, he thought on over and over again while his longtime friend from his work career, Toby, proceeded upward in front him, taking the same and only route up, carrying an identical little brick of aluminum that Professor Walker was holding too. The pieces of aluminum were souvenirs for tourists that had been delivered to the pyramid earlier that week, about two-thousand of them.

The professor again told himself, One step at a time. He was starting to frustrate himself, actually. Maybe now he understood how annoyed his students would truly become after he'd speak the saying so much to all of them in the past. The professor needed something new to think on or to say to himself so he wouldn't lose his mind during his ascension with his fast-moving friend above him.

Toby was moving quickly, whereas Professor Walker had been dragging a bit now at this point in the incredibly early morning. He thought his own two strong legs would get him through the enduring operation with much less of a struggle than Toby, for example, though Toby had chiseled arms. These five-pound bricks of aluminum were causing the professor's hands, wrists, and elbows to shake through it all. They'd done this over roughly thirty-five times now. Thirty-five trips back and forth through the Grand Gallery, ascending each time with these pieces of metal in their possession, and then descending empty handed to return to the entrance portion of the pyramid below where they'd retrieve more, only to do it over and over again.

They included Professor Walker, his two colleagues who also resided in the United States (Toby and Scotch), and lastly, Ms. Cooper who was sent to join the three men from America here and now in giving them supervised access into the Great Pyramid and to assist them with their experimental project.

Walker and Toby were halfway to their destination and praying they wouldn't have to make another trip down to retrieve more of these metal tablets. If Professor Walker's theory was correct, the team of four actually should have been done with their weight test at this point in the night/early morning. It was apparently only supposed take a little over thirty trips, roughly. Thirty times, forty at the most, up and down between the party of four, moving these aluminum tablets from the base and entrance of the pyramid (where they're sold to tourists), all the way up through the Grand Gallery to the highest accessible room in the construct known as the King's Chamber.

Professor Walker was breathing heavily as he gripped the railing tightly to the side with each passing step he took. These metallic railings, wooden stair casings, and especially the above lights were all crucially important for this planned scenario. Without the placement of all of this by modern builders, navigating the interior of the pyramid would be nearly impossible. Walker couldn't imagine having to do this experiment with holding a flashlight as well, stepping up the raw stone instead of this wood that had been laid down long ago upon the gallery for those inside to walk upon. Flashlights… imagine having to use a torch or candlelight like during the ancient eras.

Thinking of these struggles as he was sweating his way upward and forward was actually bringing his mind to ease; he was distracting himself from the fatigue. Walker and Toby just about reached their destination, where they would find Scotch and Ms. Cooper loading up some of these metal objects into the sarcophagus after they'd made their own ascension into the King's Chamber just now. The Sarcophagus, thought Professor Walker as he entered in with his tourist tablet in hand, eyes on the thing in the middle of the room. If the professor's theory was correct, this sarcophagus, in fact, would be proven to not be a tomb of any kind at all. The professor commonly referred to it as a crate or box. These terms/corrections were the very reason the four were here in the pyramid.

As planned, the aluminum souvenirs were found by the four of them near the entrance to the Great Pyramid, and for this experiment, they'd need to bring nearly fifteen-hundred of them up to the King's Chamber to place them in this stone box. Whether the party here was successful in their project or not, they'd still have to get these metallic objects out of the stone crate and back down where they came from eventually; though none of the four had discussed this miserable portion of the overall plan yet.

Walker wasn't only sweating because he was physically exhausted; he was dripping because of nervousness too. He didn't know what he would say to his three companions if this should fail, neither did he know what to say to them should they all succeed either. Seven thousand pounds, come on. Seven thousand—I know we're there.

The professor watched Scotch place two tablets in, then Ms. Cooper put hers on top of that one. The box was practically overflowing with these dumb aluminum tablets. In went Toby's, and then lastly, Professor Walker placed his on the pile.

All four of the party hastily backed themselves up to wait for the mechanism to activate! Sadly, though, there was still nothing, only the sound of silence and their heavy breathing. They'd begun working at this after 1:00 a.m., about an hour and a half after the new year had begun. Here the four were, almost two hours later, and still not knowing if they'd made any progress at all in achieving…anything. Would that mean this was a waste of time?

The only person out of the four who was currently and technically clocked in, working, would be Ms. Cooper. For the rest of the three, for this to fail would mean the only gain they'd gotten out of this scene and time here would be to have had a private session in the pyramid which no other tourists commonly received the opportunity for. Would be a waste of private tour time here. That would be so embarrassing, thought Walker.

Nothing, said Ms. Cooper, with both her hands placed on each hip.

More, said Scotch, which Professor Walker was literally about to recommend himself.

How much more? asked Ms. Cooper.

Scotch answered the woman with, One more, maybe two more.

You think another ten or twenty, thirty, forty pounds of metal is gonna do it? Just climb and sit on it then and see what happens, she said to Scotch.

Professor Walker was still quiet, but Toby chimed in now while looking to Walker. We should have hit the weight amount by now, yeah? he said in that thick, half German accent of his that everybody loved so much.

Toby continued with, I'll go. I'll bring up two more pieces, but after that, no more.

Toby was making to exit the King's Chamber, but before he left, he told them, It's good nothing happened yet. We weren't even recording.

Damn, that is absolutely true, thought Professor Walker as Toby was leaving the group to retrieve more metal.

Oh my god. Yes, said Cooper, after covering her mouth, wide-eyed. She went to the wall by the exit of the chamber where one of the black camera bags rested on the floor, just beside their three empty slippery plastic gallons that they'd brought too. She pulled the camcorder out as well as a fresh bottle of water to drink from and a rag to clean the lens of the recording device.

Next to her walked up Scotch, retrieving two walkie-talkies out of an equipment case in between some drawstring bags and the empty bottles. Take this. We'll let you know when we're about to place the final piece in.

She held the camera as she asked him, So I'm the one going back down to the Queen's Chamber?

Scotch adjusted his hat while handing her off the walkie. He said, You're the one here going for the camera, so yeah, partner.

Who's going to record up here? she asked him.

Scotch told her, I will.

Cooper looked on over past him to where Professor Walker was standing. As she was looking to Walker, Scotch said to her, Stand back by the door while you film down there like how I showed you we'd do it. That way, nothing collapses on you. Got it?

She let out a half sort of laugh and then repeated a portion of what Scotch had just said, So nothing collapses on you. Sure, if that's what you say.

Before she left the two of them, Cooper asked Scotch, Wait, you said ‘stand by the door'?

Scotch rolled his eyes and said back to her, The Queen's Chamber, you know, where you're going.

Yes, but there is no door there, she told him.

Professor Walker was seeing how flustered his buddy Jim Scotch was becoming. The entrance. You know what I mean. Go so you'll get there before Toby comes back with the things.

Out of the chamber and down those twenty-eight wood stairs of the gallery she went. Scotch was preparing a microphone and flashlight attachment for his smartphone while Professor Walker was gazing upon the filled stone crate, a crate that they'd in fact, slid from the north end of the chamber, over toward their mark in the middle where it now currently rested. The sliding of the stone container was done quickly by them shortly after their arrival here in the pyramid. This was the explanation for why three empty gallon-sized jugs of lubricant sat beside the team's belongings at the wall of the chamber where the entrance/exit was located.

Another grand portion of the plan that wasn't discussed: how they were cleaning this slippery mess up once they slid this crate back into its original position. That's only if we fail, though. If and when I'm correct in this all…cleaning some lube here is going to be the least of anyone's worries.

You know what you're gonna say once I start filming you? asked Scotch.

Professor Walker nodded his head. While he silently answered in the affirmative with his head nodding, he was rubbing his oily thumb upon the edge of the stone box here. He quickly then took a pace back, though, to be sure his own weight would not activate this mechanism that he'd led everyone here to believe could possibly indeed exist. Where is Toby? the professor asked in his mind.

That was exactly when he appeared. He was carrying not only one but two tablets with him, looking completely drenched in sweat as if he'd just taken a shower.

At the beginning of this whole tablet task, the team had been carrying two slabs up at a time, one in each hand, along with more in drawstring bags upon their backs. Soon, though, the constant up and down with well over twenty pounds per trip up became tiresome; they'd eventually switched to one at a time because of this. Now, though, here Toby appeared in front of them with two pieces of the metal, one in each hand and gasping for air.

The professor took hold of both pieces of aluminum, and then Scotch handed big Toby a gallon to drink from—of water, not lubricant. While Toby chugged, Professor Walker placed the first piece of metal inside of the crate. He kissed the last piece and then gave Scotch an Okay gesture to begin recording him.

Facing Scotch's phone with that ridiculous looking microphone attached, Professor Walker began with, "Good evening, world. Good morning, I should say,